Failure
    I'm a failure. I'm pretty much bad at everything, including the things I'm supposed to be good at, or claim to be. My mom thinks I'm weird, my dad likes me I guess, I'm bad at school, I can't do math, I'm only 5feet tall, I'm forgetful, I walk into things, I can't play guitar. The list is pretty much endless. The good news: failure is relative. I don't have to be a failure in my own eyes just because I am in the eyes of someone else. The other good news: everything is temporary.
    So, supposedly, I'm not too shabby with the poetry. The strange thing about poetry is that someone could classify a poem as horrific, while another person could think its remarkable. It's the beauty of the art world. In order to prove this, here is a poem that I think is pretty smoking hot but you might think is awful. 'One man's trash is another man's treasure' as they say.
 

 Rosie Killed Johnny

There is a white hot sun,

Burning on your left temple

Glistening under the dusty lightbulb,

Above our heads.

I’m crying,

Icicles dripping down steamy cheeks run hot with rage.

‘Stop Yelling’,

Heat hits my face and my ribs are a cage to the beast behind them.

Red Talons,

Scraping tight black cotton and I’m thrown into motion.

Tiny fists,

Clutching to a yellow broom handle.

Hair falls over arms over gritty floorboards and over you-

The fight is gone from your eyes, and ice is setting in mine.

Misplaced Places
I know so many people who love all of these exotic places, like I had this friend who travelled with her family her whole life and then right after she graduated high school, she moved to California and worked on a weed farm and then with the money she made, she packed up with the love of her life and moved to the virgin islands. That's craziness right? I can't believe that she just took off one day and did what she wanted and I feel like not many people do that these days, I feel like life has become a game of pursuing the safest path instead of challenging ourselves. Once I asked her if, out of all of the places she'd been, which was her favorite, and she said she didn't have one.
My favorite place to be is sort of weird, it's in this big white clunky car my best friend has. We take trips out deep into the woods of Gardiner and into the mountains and we listen to music and we can say whatever we'd like, because nobody is there to listen. It also has great speakers and we make playlists just for driving into the mountains. One of the best feelings I've ever had is the hum of the engine beneath my feet, and the wind blowing my hair all over the place, with the perfect song playing in the background. Not to mention, it smells like lavender in there.
 I'm also one of those people who believes that a place is just a place until you give it meaning. I don't care if I set foot in a fairy garden with rainbows shooting out of my eyeballs, places don't gain importance for being beautiful, they gain importance by being significant to you or your life in some way. It's all about function: if you kissed the love of your life for the first time in front of a junkyard, is that junkyard going to be more important to you than the random nice field a few houses down? That's for you to decide.

MALENA
As a kid, my family was really religious and as a result, so was I. I was really lonely as my parent's only child and more than anything I wanted siblings, a whole bunch of siblings. I had to be about three at this point and, I don't have any real memories before this era of my life. Each night when I would say my prayers, I would ask God for a brother and a sister because I was so alone in my house with my mom. We had this old rocking chair, that was constantly breaking, and one Christmas morning I got up before my parents to see what Santa had left me but, when I saw the presents nestled under the tree, I was overcome with sadness. I realized I had nobody to share my presents with. It was snowing outside and I didn't want to wake my parents up quite yet because I didn't want to ruin their Christmas with my crying. Instead I decided to let out one last plea in the form of a prayer. I crawled behind the old rocker and began praying and praying for a brother and sister but, it felt futile. I dried my tears, and woke up my parents. They were in a great mood and we all cooked breakfast together, bacon and eggs, and opened presents. I got a purple bike from Santa and some clothes from my Nana, my mom and dad got me a bunch of cool fairy dolls. My mom was acting sort of strange, and she said that she needed to tell me something before my Nana came over. I was worried, was dad sick? Was mom sick? My mom asked me to sit down, and she assured me that whatever happened she would always love me the same way she did at that moment and my dad told me that I needed to understand the way love worked. He said that it was endless, and that never did it have to be taken from one person to give to the next. What were they talking about? I was confused and finally my mom told me "You're getting a baby sister." I was so happy I started crying and even now, I remember the day she came home from the hospital. She was the smallest thing I'd ever seen and I loved her to bits from that moment on. That Christmas I went to bed really early because of how early I had woken up. I had this dream where I spoke to this giant whale had the entire earth growing off of his back and he told me that my sister, was my responsibility now and that I had to take care of her. He said there would be times when I had to be her mom and asked me if I could do it. I knew I could and at the end of the dream, the whale picked  me  up and put me on his back, and then I woke up. I remember this like it was yesterday and to this day, when I see my sister doing something stupid or dangerous, I hear the big blue whale's voice in my head. Since then, I've changed my opinions on religion and giant blue whales and grown up quite a bit but it doesn't change the fact that I ended up with an awesome little sister with crazy blonde hair to contrast my crazy black hair; Malena and Giannina till the end lil mimp.

Questions for God

I think the reason this world is considered imperfect, even at its most basic level is because you can't have everything at once. I used to get so angry when adults who had lead lives they were unsatisfied with told me "You can't have your cake and eat it too." I never agreed with that but now, I'm unsure. Humanity is under the assumption that getting everything they want when they want it is the definition of perfection and  I believe this is a destructive if not overly self centered view. This brings into question the concept that what you want is not always what you need, and I'm not sure if I even believe that. What I do know is that nature is at the basis of this entire planet and is the most basic and yet complex lens to look through. For example, I prefer the warm weather in New York as opposed to the biting cold of winter but, I also prefer nighttime to daytime but obviously I can't have shorter days and warm weather where I'm living. Another fork in the road I have to contend with is the choice of what society defines as 'success' vs. emotional and spiritual fulfillment. I could do all my homework, spend all my time with my nose buried in a textbook learning pointless facts or I could go out and live. I had a teacher once who told me that I should  sacrifice my time and happiness now for the sake of happiness in the future but something in me says there is something seriously wrong with that logic. What if I die tomorrow? What if I die tomorrow or even in the next few years and I die unhappy because I was saving all my happiness up for a supposed future? The Franciscan monks believe in the embodiment of evil as Satan. They say Satan tells his demons to "Let them believe they have time." because when people think they have time, they put off being happy another day, another week, another year, and it never happens. Back to the concept of imperfections, humanity has a tendency to create, in our minds, an ideal world that is unreachable. To me, this world is summer all the time with shortened days in which I can do what I please. Basically in conclusion, I don't have any answers to these deep philosophical questions. Can we have our cake and eat it too? Should we be sacrificing the happiness of today for a supposed tomorrow? Is what we want the same thing as what we need? Do we have time? I don't know anything really, I'm just a kid.